LadyCrimson

I'm no good at present-giving either ... my family has never been traditional in that sense and hubby and I don't bother gifting each other either, so I never built up a knack for it. I had a friend who was very good at gift-giving because she'd pay attention to the smallest thing you'd say, even in idle passing, and months later she'd show up at your door with something you'd forgotten that you even wanted, until you have one, if that makes sense. :D But most Moms I know tend to like stuff with personal touches - like old family photos, if you can get your hands on some, in a self-made framed collage or some other kind of inventive arrangement/presentation. Or if she's into tech, one of those digital photo frames perhaps. But I think most digital-frames aren't truly inexpensive. Other than that, for the less-pricey ranges I have no clue. All depends on your mom's interests.

lol, one of those 80's 1-hit wonder songs I love/hate. Catchy and sticks in your head. I don't like the 'new' versions they did much later, tho.

For the shooters, when you guys say it's co-op, does that mean you play the game/plot together, as in, say, Diablo's, or is it more along the lines of frag/personal combat'. Hubby likes whimsical fast-paced arcade-like games (Frogger/space invaders), or some shooters/action-rpgs. He's not into puzzle/word/board styled games. I've heard about Worms ... didn't know it was co-op. I'll look into that one more. Another question ... how many actually rent the games before buying? Just curious.

Yes. I don't typically like gamepads, and most PC-mice are too 'big/long/tall' for my liking ... but the xbox ones in the store that I've held didn't seem all that bad .. shape is fine but it is a bit of a finger stretch sometimes.

Was it one of those form fitted plastic-wrapped every-edge-glued packages, which were likely a conspiracy-driven invention to make us all buy more Band-Aids? Many battles, many scars. And this week we're still hanging in limbo waiting for a homeowner to move out of their house so the bank that owns their house can legally accept or counter-offer our bid. It's frustrating.

Exploration of environments and a game that isn't 20+ hours of nothing but rounding corners to shoot enemies that pop up from behind wooden crates.

Breakout.

Are there any games on the xbox that can be played by 2 people at the same time (2-controllers etc)? I want to play ME but am having a hard time convincing hubby on the console thing ... he doesn't see any/many games he'd be personally interested in. heheh

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LKeyJ1XRsVY Guy called slasherthrasher videotapes his TV screen to make game videos - the appeal isn't about his gaming so much, but rather his commentary/vocal reactions as he plays. Tis really funny/charming. The video is part1 of 3, of him trying to 'get to the car' in HalfLife2. All three of the videos are pretty fun to watch, imo.

Doom3 again, because it's one of the few shooters I have and it's fun on the big TV. Yes I'm addicted to playing games on the big screen now.

... Well, I think it's funny.

28 Weeks Later. First scene/5-10 minutes were cool. The rest of the 1st hour was ok but spent a long time setting up characters and such. The last hour I spent fast-fowarding for several seconds about every 5 minutes.

Screenshot?

Mostly for Bok I guess ... hubby was playing and I tried to take another TR on the TV pic. Best I could do w/the lighting and no tripod. :/

Saw the Mist. I'd give it a B-- (B double minus, haha) ... or 2.75 stars out of 5, maybe ... a decent, but not nearly one of the best, King adapatations. I absolutely hated the very ending, however. They should've closed the film maybe 2 minutes earlier than they did, because those last 2 minutes destroyed the entire potential 'horrific drama' impact for me. Anyway, beyond the ending and some sluggish 'non-action' sections, it was certainly better than one might expect. "Ollie" was cool, the nutty doomsayer chewed scenery amusingly, and the suspense parts were entertaining enough, even if the monsters looked a bit cheesy. Maybe they were supposed to look a bit cheesy ... w/the ending, I'm not sure. A couple of the action sequences were even very close to what I envisioned when I read the written story, and that was cool on a personal level, too.

Definitely sounds like an irritating problem for those who have it. I tried a quick Google on variations of 'vista router problem' and it seems you're not alone ... although most of the neworking issues seem more related to slow or randomly dropped connections rather than inability to connect entirely. From what little I can gleen via cursory glances: According to some advice, if you use a static IP with Vista, you MUST provide a DNS address or it will not connect to the internet. Since I don't own Vista, I can't confirm whether this is true or not, but maybe something to check/try if you haven't already? Don't know how old your Verizon router is, but firewall-equipped routers - or older routers in general - may have problems. Sometimes you just have to get another router/hardware. (p.s. - I know that article is a bit old, but mid-late-2007 articles/posts/complaints led me to the article, so I assume it's still problematic). Contacting Verizon seems like a good thing - although they may just shuttle you over to Microsoft.

I think it's not just eye-candy, although that's a large part of it - shorter development times, more time spent on graphics/engines, less time for everything else. But it also feels, to me, like a slow move away from what some might call 'hardcore/core' gaming ... a trend towards wanting to make games more accessable to a general/wide audience, if that makes sense. Not just to 'young children', either - but older people who might want simpler/shorter etc. games because of other reasons - time, motivation, whatever. Trying to make one game fit all - or at least as many as possible.

I don't anymore, but before the internet was 'all the rage' and filled with multimedia doohickeys, I used IRC a lot. It is a fun extenstion of forums. Maybe if I have time/feel motivated to install mIRC again I'll try popping in sometime. No promises tho.

Stab in the dark: did you try a different driver for your router/network card?

The guy standing behind her doesn't look very happy.

One can find a body to be 'fine' but not find the face to be 'fine', and I think the latter was the point of The Architect. And ... it's not a movie, but I watched the Shrek The Halls the other night, the 30 minute Xmas special thingie. It was predictable and (to me) largely boringly gooshy, but the bit where Puss n Boots told his version of Nightmare Before Xmas and becomes distracted by the puffball of his Santa hat was hysterical. Hubby and I were in stitches.

Ah ... ok. I asked because I've seen some packaged boxes labeled as "Xbox360Live" and some as just "Xbox360". Perhaps the Live version comes with a cable included etc. and the other doesn't? I didn't notice. I did notice, however, that the "Halo3" version (here, at least) doesn't actually come with the game included. I had look at the fine print on the side of the box to realize that. $50 more for a green case, then. No thanks. heh

I somehow doubt Mother Teresa would've agreed with you. I understand the emotional sentiment behind your statement, but there are plenty of examples of individuals/couples with no children who care about/sacrifice/do more for the future of all than some folks with 10 children. I even know some personally.

That would be me, as well. I look at reviews sometimes, certainly, but since ANY review is only ONE person's opinion, I place much more importance on blogs/word of mouth/forums etc. for a well-rounded consensus than on 5-10 people from review sites. However, I think firing a writer only because of ad pressure to write a review to pander to advertisers would certainly be bogus. No clue if that was actually so in this case ... I don't care enough about the case to research it ... I'm only saying that I'm against the notion in principle.

Just so I'm clear ... if you don't buy an Xbox that says "Xbox360Live", you don't have access to "Live" - yes? We have no need/desire for Live ...